Everyone was sitting in somewhat of an arc around Jessica as she told them of her conversation with Taeyeon. As she spoke, she tried to keep calm and maintain that expressionless face that earned her the ice princess nickname long ago.

“I know now why the ahjumma couldn’t finish the story,” Jessica quietly said. “She was telling us about the soldiers, remember? And how Tae… how she wanted the guns? They went out later to get those guns, the two of them, but Fany… the zombies got her. I don’t know how it happened. But she said she had to make a choice. She said she let Fany get… get eaten. I think maybe she saw her get bit and knew it was too late and so she let them… she let…”

“It’s okay,” Gary said, rubbing her back.

“No, it’s not,” Jessica said. “You should have seen her rocking back and forth, holding her knees. And what she said afterward… she said she kept thinking about that moment when Fany was bit and how… how there was this look on Fany’s face, almost like she had gotten bit on purpose. I think… Tae didn’t say this, but I think Fany saw the zombies and used herself as a distraction. I think she sacrificed herself so that Tae could get the guns.”

Krystal, who could read Jessica’s expression better than anyone else, could see how she was trying to cover her pain and tried now to change the subject. “Did you tell her about the base?”

Jessica nodded. “I almost didn’t. I thought it might be a bad idea, that maybe she wouldn’t want us to leave and would try to keep us here. And maybe, maybe I kind of wanted that, to stay here with her.” Her gaze had been on the floor until now, but she looked up at the group then, still maintaining her expressionless face. “When I told her about the base, she seemed to think about it for a moment but then said no. She said that she couldn’t protect the ahjummas on the road like she could here on campus. I tried telling her that this was her chance at escaping this hell, but she was just… she was just so worried about losing any of them.”

“They’ve become her family,” Gary said.

“But I’m her family, too,” Jessica said.

“But she knows she doesn’t have to protect you,” CL said. “She knows that you’re with your own group of people.”

“Yeah, but if they all came, we could be one large group,” Jessica said. “We’d have a better chance at surviving.”

Jong Kook now interrupted. “We’d only have a better chance because there would be greater odds that the zombies would get someone else in our group before us,” he said.

Jessica had thought that the idea of strength in numbers meant that they’d all have a better chance of surviving together, but she knew that what Jong Kook had said was true – that a larger number of people only meant that it would take longer for the zombies to pick them off one by one and that it ultimately meant more death in the long run. That cold harsh truth silenced Jessica.

Tired from the long, horrible day they had all endured, they set off in pairs and found separate rooms down the hall to sleep in. G-Dragon and Dara were the only ones not doubled up with another couple. They had their own room and had just peeled off their dirty clothes, relieved to be rid of them.

G-Dragon pulled out the clean clothes they had packed and flattened them out on the floor as somewhat of a makeshift sheet on which they could sleep. They lay there and holding each other for a while until G-Dragon suddenly rolled atop her and began kissing her deeply.

“I’m not in the mood, Jiyong,” Dara said, turning her face away from his kisses.

G-Dragon rolled back onto his side and stared at her. “Come on, Dara. I really need you tonight.” He lifted his hand to her face, letting his fingers drift down her neck, and then nuzzled up close to her again to plant small kisses along her collarbone.

Dara closed her eyes, not wanting to lose herself in his kisses but finding it harder and harder to resist.

G-Dragon’s kisses migrated from her collarbone, up her neck, and back to her lips. He at first, letting his tongue drift back and forth across her lips before gently pushing inside , his body now back on top of her as his lips consumed hers.

Dara lay on that hard floor with her legs wrapped around him and her arms clutching his back. “I can’t…” she tried to say, turning away again from his kisses.

G-Dragon’s hand was moving up her abdomen, his fingers spread open and reaching up to caress her soft . “Please,” he said.

“I can’t,” Dara said again. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Aish,” G-Dragon said, rolling off her again and sitting up now.

“I don’t know how you can think about right now,” Dara said, sitting up next to him.

“I don’t know how you can’t!” He sighed and tilted his head as he looked at her. “We’ve leaving in the morning,” he quietly said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t even have a plan. What are we going to do? Just walk north through what’s left of Seoul to try to get to that base? You know how far that is? We may not make it. We may not even last a day. But we have tonight. This might be our last night… ever. I just… I want to spend it loving you.”

Dara’s expression softened, her eyes now teary and dreamily gazing at G-Dragon. She reached for him then and pulled him back atop her. “Okay,” she said, before accepting his mouth and forcing her thoughts to focus only on the wetness of his kiss, on his hands touching her everywhere, on his hardness pressed between her thighs, on anything other than the fact that they would be leaving tomorrow without Taeyeon.

Jessica was sitting next to Gary in the next room, the same room they had all been in earlier. Thunder and Krystal were sharing the room with them and seemed to already be asleep.

“You feel any better?” Gary whispered.

Jessica shook her head. “I just wish I could’ve convinced her to come. I can’t imagine leaving her.”

“I know. None of us can. When you were gone, we were all talking about that, about whether we would be able to just leave in the morning without Taeyeon-ssi. But we have to go, Sica. We have to. If we don’t, then leaving the others behind on Sido meant nothing.”

“It means nothing anyway,” Jessica suddenly said, her loud voice piercing the air. “Why are we even going? If we make it to that base and get on that plane to the U.S. or Australia or whatever, what about Hyun Suk-ssi and everyone else? What’s going to happen to them?”

At that moment, Thunder stirred in his sleep beside Krystal. He seemed frustrated, constantly switching from one position to the next before finally giving up on sleep and sitting up.

“Did we wake you?” Jessica asked.

“No,” Thunder said, rubbing his eyes. “Just can’t sleep.” He stood and felt around in the dark for his t-shirt, which he then threw on, wearing only that and his boxer shorts as he made his way to the door. “Be right back,” he said, before closing the door behind him.

He walked down the hall and peeked into the next room, trying to find Jong Kook. What he saw instead was G-Dragon’s body atop his sister. “Ew, gross,” he muttered, as he quickly looked away, squinting his eyes. He was almost afraid to look into the next room lest he see another couple, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep without talking to Jong Kook and so he peeked inside anyway. Seungri, CL, Daesung, and Minzy were on the floor in that room, seemingly fast asleep.

He then checked the third room and was relieved when he saw Jong Kook sitting with Ji Hyo, T.O.P., and Bom inside.

Ji Hyo noticed him first. “Can’t sleep?”

Thunder shook his head as he entered and sat down with them.

“Neither can we,” T.O.P. said. “We were just talking about tomorrow, trying to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Good,” Thunder said. “Because right now, I feel like things are kind of hopeless. We need a plan. I’d feel better if we had a plan.”

Jong Kook pushed the map across the floor toward Thunder. “You can barely read anything on this anymore,” he said. “The water damage made it kind of useless, but it was pretty much useless before. It doesn’t show any streets, just the major routes.”

Thunder picked up the map and tried to make sense of it. “Well, we know that the water leads north to the base, right? And that highway?” The faint blue line that signified the water was no longer visible on the faded map, but the highway that ran parallel could still be seen. He pointed that out now to the group.

Jong Kook shook his head. “I think we should steer clear of that highway. After what happened today with that zombie horde… I don’t know.”

“Well, what else can we do?” Bom asked.

“We’ve always been safest on the water,” Jong Kook said. “I think we should head down to the shore in the morning and follow it up only until we find another boat.”

“We weren’t safe on the water before,” Bom muttered, looking down.

T.O.P. breathed in deeply, knowing how Bom felt. “It’s better than the streets, Bommie.”

Bom shrugged. “I guess. But at least on the streets you can see the zombies. In the water, they’re hidden and can just reach up and bite you without you ever seeing them.” She shuddered at the thought.

“But not if we’re on the boat,” Jong Kook said.

“But our boat can sink again,” Bom said, slightly pouting. “And what if we don’t find a big boat? What if we just find small fishing boats or canoes? The zombies can easily tip them and pull us under.” She was thinking back to that morning when they were traveling under those bridges packed with zombies, and how that one zombie had come up out of the water and grabbed her.

“Well, if someone else has a better idea, now’s the time to suggest it,” Jong Kook said.

Everyone sat quietly, thinking.

“What about trying to find a vehicle like a truck or a van and drive there?” Thunder asked. “If we can drive to the base, we’d get there more quickly than on the boat, and more safely, too.”

“There’d be too many obstacles on the road,” Jong Kook said. “Other cars, zombies… we can’t risk getting stuck and being surrounded.”

“What about motorcycles?” T.O.P. asked. “We wouldn’t have the protection that a van would give us, but we’d be able to drive around anything in our way.”

“Unless we find ourselves facing another horde of those things,” Jong Kook said. He noticed the disappointment on everyone’s faces then. “Look, I don’t mean to discourage all of you. I’m just trying to think about every possibility.”

Ji Hyo sighed. “It just seems like there are no possibilities,” she said. “No matter what we do, there’s just so much risk.”

“I guess the shore is the least risky,” T.O.P. said, conceding to Jong Kook’s original plan. “We can just try to stay close to the water and out of sight of the highway like before.”

Thunder, looking down again at the map, said, “There’s no way we can walk the whole way to the base. It’s too far.” He glanced around at all of them now. “We better hope we find another boat.”

Later on, after Thunder returned to his room and Jong Kook and Ji Hyo had fallen asleep, Bom lay with her head on T.O.P.’s chest, listening to the sound of his breathing while he slept. Soon, she too fell asleep, but her sleep was not restful. Her subconscious slipped into that same reoccurring nightmare she’d been having lately – that nightmare of T.O.P. leaving her.

It was always the same. There was chaos all around her. People running, screaming, dying. She was in some sort of dark corridor and was calling out for T.O.P., trying to find him. The corridor became somewhat of a maze, each way leading to a choice of other darker corridors that she soon become lost in. But then, out of that darkness, she saw a door in the distance outlined in light from whatever existed on the other side of it. She ran toward that door and swung it open, the light instantly overwhelming and blinding her, forcing her to squeeze her eyes closed.

And then, just like every other time she’d had this nightmare, she opened her eyes in the dream at the same time that she opened them in waking life, and all she could feel was this incredible sense of loneliness, as if T.O.P. was gone, as if he had left her.

With her eyes wide open now, she looked up from T.O.P.’s chest to the morning light pouring into the room from the small window and tried to calm her anxiety, telling herself that it was just a dream, that it meant nothing.

T.O.P., awakened by her stirring, asked if she was okay.

“Yeah,” she whispered, trying to forget her dream as she rested her head back on him and closed her eyes again. She felt his fingers begin sweeping through her hair then. “I love when you do that,” she said.

“When I do what?”

“When you play with my hair like that. It’s relaxing.”

T.O.P. smiled and continued to brush her hair with his fingers, not wanting to open his eyes yet. He knew that once he opened his eyes, the reality of the day would set in. “Let’s just stay like this for a while,” he whispered. “For as long as we can.” But the moment he said that, he heard something on the other side of the room and quickly turned to look toward where Jong Kook and Ji Hyo had slept, seeing them both waking up at that moment.

Jong Kook and Ji Hyo had slept in their clothes, having no choice but to do so because they hadn’t had time to pack like the others.

“I wish I could brush my teeth,” Ji Hyo muttered. She noticed T.O.P. and Bom then and waved. “You two up? Did you sleep well?”

Bom sat up and rubbed her eyes. T.O.P. did the same.

“Not really,” Bom said.

“Did you happen to pack toothpaste?” Ji Hyo asked.

Bom nodded.

“Would it be okay if I borrowed it? I can use my finger as a brush, I guess.”

Bom grabbed her backpack beside her and then stood up, stretching a bit before she walked over to Ji Hyo. “Let’s see if we can find a bathroom,” she said.

After the girls left, Jong Kook and T.O.P. sat there for a moment, trying to keep their eyes open.

“You think we’re going to make it?” T.O.P. asked.

“We have to,” Jong Kook said, trying to mentally prepare himself for the day to come.

After everyone had washed up, packed, and armed themselves with their K2 assault rifles, they gathered together in the hallway.

Jong Kook gestured for them to huddle close around him. “We’re going to stick to the shore,” he said. “We’ll be more careful this time. We’ll try to stay in the brush as much as possible as we follow the river so that we’re not seen again by any zombies on the highway. Hopefully it won’t be long before we find another boat.”

Everyone stared at him, wanting to believe that they would be okay but knowing that the odds were stacked against them.

“Anyone see Taeyeon-unni this morning?” Krystal asked. She looked over at Jessica. “I’m sure my sister wants to say goodbye.”

Jessica stared down at the floor, still trying to grasp the idea that she would be leaving her leader behind.

“I’m sure we’ll see her when we head downstairs,” Ji Hyo said.

“Everyone ready?” Jong Kook asked.

Some nodded hesitantly.

“Okay then,” Jong Kook said. “Let’s go.”

They traveled the hallway to its end and made their way into the stairwell, their footsteps resounding loudly as they descended down to the first floor. Jong Kook, at the head of the line, opened the first floor door, expecting to see some ahjummas around, but the hallway was quiet and empty. Ahead, he could see the double doors leading to the auditorium. “We’ll cut through there to the back of the auditorium the way we came in,” he said, glancing at those following behind him.

The others nodded and continued to follow.

When they reached the end of the hall, Jong Kook pushed open the double doors but then stopped in the entryway at the sight of all the ahjummas gathered together in front of the stage. The women looked just as they had the day before, all decked out in their textbook armor and surgical masks with those knives sticking out of their wrists and elbows and their machine guns in hand. Taeyeon was standing in the center. When she saw Jong Kook’s group, she stepped forward and lowered the surgical mask from her face. “I’ve decided to come,” she said. She gestured to the ahjummas around her. “We were talking this morning and… we’re all ready to leave this place.”

Jessica pushed her way through the others and ran toward Taeyeon, practically leaping into her arms.

“Watch, watch,” Taeyeon said, trying to keep her arms out so as not to injure Jessica with the implanted knives.

Jessica wouldn’t let go of her. She hugged her so tightly that Taeyeon, not knowing how else to get Jessica to stop hugging her, suddenly reached around and pinched Jessica’s .

Jessica jumped back with an open-mouthed smile. It was the first time that she had seen a flash of the real Taeyeon emerging. “Are you getting all y on me?” she teasingly asked.

Taeyeon snorted. “You wish,” she said.